Miki Falls Book Three: Autumn by Mark Crilley

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up–In the first two books, readers learn that Miki is a high school senior trying to find her place in the world, but Hiro, though a teenager, is also a Deliverer, a member of a secret organization that captures love from dying relationships and gives it to new couples. Deliverers are forbidden to fall in love with humans. Supernatural abilities aside, Miki Falls remains a series about two star-crossed lovers. After Hiro's fellow Defender, Reika, confronts them, Miki proposes that they run away, and Hiro suggests the home of Toshiko Yamada, an octogenarian who left the fold of the Deliverers decades earlier. There, they believe they will be safe for a time. Drawn in black-and-white pencil, the characters look ready to step off the page into a television series. While they are recognizable as Japanese, Crilley clearly has an American influence, and his fashions look to be straight out of a neighborhood Target store. Miki, blissfully, has none of the typical histrionics exhibited by other female manga characters, and Hiro has the same confusion over loyalty and love that many boys would have. The passion is mild and the story line vaguely familiar (as are most stories with star-crossed lovers), making this series a good pick for middle school students. Libraries looking to purchase Autumn should make sure to also purchase Spring, Summer (both 2007), and Winter (2008, all HarperCollins).–Sarah Krygier, Solano County Library, Fairfield, CA

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